


I Know Better Than To Call You Mine

by UniversallyEcho



Category: Soy Luna (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, And the Rollerband got the fame they deserve, Angst, Basically Ambar is a famous actress, Cheating, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, That's all I can say without spoiling everything, also kind of slightly just a little bit of, but you know, my version of angst which isn't much, which is my all time favorite trope so get excited, Ámbar Smith Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22842358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniversallyEcho/pseuds/UniversallyEcho
Summary: “What about you?”Her lips part with a slow, slick, mesmerizing drag as she takes in what he settled on, “Excuse me?”This time more sure that this is where he wants to take the conversation, he repeats,“What about you? When everyone leaves, what do you do?”“I stopped worrying about me a long time ago”.Or; Ámbar Smith is a famous actress who grows furious and heartbroken when her long term boyfriend and famous singer Matteo Balsano kisses another girl in front of her when going up to accept his award. It seems she's not the only member of the broken hearts club when she stumbles upon Simón Álvarez who's sulking alone at the bottom of a staircase.
Relationships: Delfi Alzamendi/Pedro, Luna Valente/Matteo Balsano, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Past Ámbar Smith/Matteo Balsano, Ámbar Smith/Simón Álvarez
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	1. Let's Fall In Love For The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter names taken from the song "Let's Fall In Love For The Night " by FINNEAS.

**You have nine (9) unheard messages.**

“Ámbar? Ámbar, it’s Luna - Luna Valente - I’m so sorry, I really didn’t know he was going to do that. If I had known, well, actually I don't know what I would have done but I swear I didn't mean to hurt you like this. I really hope this doesn’t affect our work relationship - I - I’m really looking forward to working with you in the new movie, I completely understand though if you feel like you need to reject the company’s offer now. 

_ ————Silence _

Ámbar I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but I really love him, and - and I think he loves me too. And I know it’s wrong because he’s still  _ technically _ with you but—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“What the fuck just happened! Ámbar what the fuck just happened! Did you know he was going to do that?! When did you guys break up? Did you guys even break up? Ámbar, do I need to beat her up for you?! I could totally do it. She's like 4 feet nothing, it’d be like fighting a chipmunk! I could use the point of my stilettos and just jam the entire thing in her eye—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“Hey, ‘Amb, I know we were supposed to go out to celebrate with dinner tonight but with the whole catastrophe that just happened I don’t think it’d be wise to go out, Delfi says the front is swarmed with paparazzi. Anyways, I was wondering if I could borrow your pearl headband, you left it at the table when you ran after seeing Matteo kissing that rookie actress and just because you can’t go out tonight doesn’t mean the rest of us should just stay in, uh hold on Delfi’s calling for me, _ no I know Delfi, I am being sensitive to her situation, it’s not like she’s going to need the headband _ —”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“Ámbar, honey, it’s your manager, you’re probably feeling a flurry of emotions right now and as your agency we stand behind you 100% and whatever actions you deem necessary we will support, even if you want to cancel your role in the hollywood movie with Luna Valente. I just need to remind you that if you get in trouble with the law again, the police have warned us that they won’t accept VIP premiere tickets as bail—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“Hi, it’s Jazmín again, Delfi and I are going to a restaurant with Pedro and his bandmates and there's this really cute brown haired guitarist who might show up, _ you know how I feel about guitarists, _ and Pedro says Simón, that’s his name Simón, _ isn’t is so charming? _ Anyway, Pedro says he likes it when girls don't have their hair in their face and I was like hmmmm... I wonder who has a headband I could borrow that would perfectly solve this situation—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“It’s Jazmín again, _ no don’t worry Delf I haven't told her about the comments people are posting online _ — Oh shit! Ámbar, I was kidding. Totally kidding, no one is saying anything online, I swear, they're not even talking about how you probably deserve being cheated on by him because—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“Hi, this is Lianna Leeds, I’m with ArgentinaStar, your agent let us through to your number, we’re wondering if you’d be interested in doing an interview about your boyfriend,  _ or is it ex-boyfriend now? _ Either way many of your fans are confused about your relationship with Matteo Balsan —”

**Your message has been deleted.**

“Hi, it’s Jazmín again, I just wanted to remind you about the headband—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

**“** Ámbar, it’s Matteo, I’m sorry—”

**Your message has been deleted.**

  
  


_ That son of a bitch, that lying, cheating, absolute asshole, no-good son of a bitch. How could he do this to her? Today of all days, and in the way that he did it, after knowing how much today meant to her?  _

Ámbar’s nude louis vuitton pumps clicked viciously against the marble tiles as she marched through an otherwise quiet and empty hall. Her anger was emitted through her march as the noise echoed and bounced against the tall walls, imitating the similar fashion of her travelling thoughts bouncing in her mind.

While she was normally able to mask any negative emotion with a composed smile and a graceful hand gesture, the anger she was currently feeling was so deeply rooted into her being that the only graceful thing about her was the way her gown moved across her chest as it heaved deep breaths of outrage.

The gown she was wearing was custom made, only the best for the up and coming actress. Afterall, her godmother  _ is _ the most famous and talented actress of her generation, and no less is expected of Ámbar. Even her award show dress was prone to face the scrutinous eyes of her godmother and the silk, long, and modest baby blue, the exact shade match to her eyes, gown certainly passed those high standards.

It was the type of dress an actress would wear to an award ceremony knowing for a fact that she was going to win her nomination and then fake surprise when it happened. The type of dress a sweet girl with a heart of gold would wear on the day her long term boyfriend proposes. The type of dress that screamed class and sophistication, except  _ without _ screaming because classy sophisticated people don't scream. Then again, Ámbar doesn’t think classy sophisticated people have boyfriends who kiss other girls in front of them when an audience of hundreds of thousands of people are watching, so she’s not sure if the same rules apply.

Ámbar had originally wanted to wear a striking ruby two piece, all in satin sheath with a slit cut running from the edge of a skirt to the middle of her thigh, the perfect contrast of milky pale skin and bold shiny fabric. Her manager immediately rejected this option. Deeming it inappropriate and presumptuous to wear for an actress in a committed and monogamous relationship with such a respectable young actor/singer such as Matteo Balsano.

She wonders if this means she can wear the two pieces to her next event now. Since she’s very evidently no longer in a committed and monogamous relationship with Matteo, which was apparently not even monogamous to begin with. 

_ ‘That’ll be nice’  _ Ámbar thinks to herself, at least the shimmering fabric will smoothly stretch over her skin, sloping a bigger curve against her hips than she actually has and the skinny straps against her bare shoulders will elongate her features, leaving at least one less thing for the paparazzi to pick over. 

No one will imply that it’s a lack of beauty that led to his unfaithfulness. Not that they were likely to focus on her physical characteristics at all, not with a topic this juicy when more interesting accusations can be made. She’ll bet her entire fortune on the fact that every news agency in Argentina tonight is trying to figure out what Ámbar could have possibly done to compel Matteo to betray his relationship with such a beneficial and sensible option that could boost his popularity and jump start his career in favor of an average, unknown, actress wannabe. 

They’ve probably all started typing about how she’s a malicious, controlling, conceited, and terrible human being. Which isn't actually all that far from the truth but that still doesn’t mean she wants those words blown up on magazines across the country. 

Which is why she was currently pacing so forcefully, with no specific destination in mind, after ditching her friends once the after-party started. She needed to think. Needed to find a way to distract the press with a more dramatic, more gossip worthy news to steer the negative attention away from her disaster of a love life. She didn’t have time to dwell over the details of what went down.

She couldn’t. The memory will probably stay forever ingrained in her mind but at least for right now she wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think about the cheers of the crowd and the overwhelming noise of people clapping in sync when the announcer declared Matteo Balsano the ‘Best New Individual Artist’. Wouldn’t think of the sense of pride Ámbar felt in her core to be able to say that her boyfriend won an award only to turn her head and see his lips on the lips of someone. Someone that wasn’t Ámbar. Someone that was very clearly Luna Valente.

The tension in the room was palpable when Matteo realized his mistake, and slowly separated from Luna. Ámbar doesn’t even remember her reaction to the entire situation. The whole thing was so humiliating that she thinks she might have blacked out, but one thing she knows for sure is that she’s going to get a hell of speech from Sharon when she goes home because she forgot to maintain a neutral expression throughout it all. 

The worst part of it was when he went up to the main stage to accept the award, and instead of ignoring what he just did, he thought it would be better to announce that he was in love. In love with Luna, and while he apologizes for doing it behind peoples backs, he can’t control his heart.

What an asshole, he couldn’t keep it in his pants for five more minutes. Of course he would choose to do it under the burning lights of the stage and flashes of the cameras. Where every lens was catching the minuscule movements in her facial expression, it was kind of smart actually, that way she was forced to keep her unwanted thoughts to herself.

And,  _ fuck _ , it’s not like she’s never thought about cheating on him before. Their relationship has always been far from stable, or comforting, or understanding or any of the other adjectives one might use to describe a healthy one. But despite it all, no matter how terrible of actions Ámbar has committed in the past, the one she’s never done is having an affair. And trust her, she’s had the opportunities.

It’s not like she never found herself under the flourescent lights of a low budget club, so crowded with drunk people that no paparazzi could find her, if they even managed to get past the tight security in the first place. Always filled with lonely, beautiful people, making it easy for Ámbar to find a tipsy handsome guy she could dance with,  _ on rhythm she should state unlike some people _ . From there things move quickly. She can’t be the only one to notice how similar dance moves in a club are to grinding, but,  _ Jesus Christ, _ she never went through with it. 

Besides, it might make things easier to process for Ámbar if she knew his new love affair was only sexual, but one look at Luna Valente and it was obvious that was  _ not _ the case. And, that, she thinks, is the most depressing part, he actually fell in love with her. 

For some reason, some strange reason that Ámbar can’t figure out for the life of her, Matteo chose Luna, over her.

But no, no, she wasn’t going to focus on that. She  _ couldn’t _ focus on that, because once she did, there would be no going back, and all that would come from those thoughts would be an inevitable meltdown about how there was something fundamentally wrong with her. 

He refused to love or be loved in half measures. And Ámbar Smith is not one to fall in love. She crossed cautiously and carefully, aware of every hole that could ricochet her into unwanted territory. Unlike Luna, who had managed to escape the hollywood category of insincere smiles and smeared lipstick phone numbers on alcohol receipts with her bright honesty and cheerful laughter and blinding belief in things that were too good to be true. It was pathetic,  _ really _ , the more she thought about it. But she guesses that’s Matteo's type, bubbly naive little girls too immature to grow up.

The least he could do though was break up with her ahead of time. Save her the embarrassment of finding out with the rest of the public and feeling betrayed all at once. Not to mention that the entire thing was captured in the media, for everyone to dissect and analyse.

It’s only when Ámbar notices a slouched figure sitting on the bottom steps of a staircase that she’s shaken out of her haze.

Once she curiously takes a couple steps closer she recognizes him as the guitarist Jazmín had left a voicemail about.  _ What was his name again? Something with an S? And what was he doing sulking instead of at the dinner with the girls and the rest of the band? _

Watching him rub his weary eyes in frustration before staring at the ceiling, Ámbar feels herself drawn to him and, in a move that surprises ever herself, she walks to his side. Simón then shifts, looking up to catch as Ámbar tried to subtly position herself by his side.

With his face catching the light, Ámbar can see the tear stains on his cheeks more clearly and it tugs at her heart just a little, you know, as much as its stone cold exterior can be tugged at. 

She doesn’t know a ton about him. The only time they’ve ever interacted have been at other celebrity events and it has mostly consisted of Ámbar gazing past him to find someone more famous around. Even so, she knows enough to know the cause of his sorrow. Luna Valente strikes again. For someone so allegedly sweet, she really does play around with people's hearts.

Ámbar watches silently while Simón wipes the few tears still freely falling. She tries to think of something to say, to soothe him or reassure him or  _ something  _ but she doesn’t have a ton of experience in this kind of thing. Instead she clears her throat and pats him on the shoulder in encouragement. 

She could so easily save herself from this torture and walks to couple meters left until the exit but, despite her low moral standards, it doesn’t seem right to just leave him alone when he’s so sad.

A small part of her conscience also feels a strange sort of loyalty with him. He’s the only one to understand how she’s feeling right now. Sure he and Luna were never official but the amount of love songs literally named after her were kind of an indication to his crush. I mean, he even moved countries for that girl, and then had to watch as the girl he fell in love with kissed his band’s artistic rival on live television. 

Although, she’s admittedly handling it better than he is.

“You don’t have to comfort me, I can tell you’re not very good at this kind of thing”. His voice is horse and a little scratchy but the words still sound soft against her ears, despite their slightly insulting meaning.

_ Wow, rejected twice in one day, that must be a new record for her. See this is why she never tries to be nice. _

He stares at her some more, probably still waiting for some sort of response and leaving her a little unnerved. There’s something about him, in the way he studies her features, a little desperate and impossibly alert that makes her feel like she’s staring right at a mirror. The unnecessary thought makes her want to run away and pull him as close to her as possible at the same time.

Ámbar starts to seriously question her mental state for attempting to build up the courage to start a conversation with him when there’s an entire list of things she has to do tonight that should be prioritized, like dealing with the media for one. 

“Budge over”, she demands while pushing at his shoulders until he moves closer to the railing, leaving enough space for her to sit. 

“Luna, really?” The words come out of her mouth faster than her brain can process them and she winces once she realizes that her first try at breaking the ice is by criticizing his choice of taste in crushes and, inevitably, the subject that broke his heart.

Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be too sensitive about it. Raising his eyebrows in surprise at her question and seeming a little more lighthearted, he retorts, “Matteo, really?” That gets a snort out of her, and even though it’s not a full on laugh it  _ is _ the closest thing she’s felt to one since the incident and that in itself is rewarding for Simón. 

Ámbar knows there’s not a ton she can reply to that, looking back now she’s not sure what she saw in Matteo, his better characteristics don’t outweigh the douchey ones. 

“Touche.” She replies. 

A silence draws between them, though it’s more calming than it is awkward and Ámbar can’t tell if the new warmth she feels is from the body heat of his close proximity or from the sudden wave of tranquility that overcomes her when she’s no longer anxiously contemplating the consequences of Matteo's actions.

“Do you” Ámbar starts cautiously, “want to talk about it?”

Simón shakes his head in rejection but not seconds before Ámbar can change the subject he starts to speak anyway.

“There’s nothing to talk about”, he sounds so defeated as he says it, “I read the signs all wrong, I thought she liked me as long as I had liked her, and I confessed my feelings to her this morning but she brushed them off. I thought maybe she just needed time to digest what I said and then I saw her kiss back when Matteo initiated it during the event and I realised she never liked me to begin with”. He explains this all slowly, as if he’s coming to terms with his feelings as he says them out loud and then visibly bites down on the inside of her cheek once he finished the sentence, like he’s fighting the urge to say something else. Something _more_.

She knows firsthand that if he keeps whatever it is that’s plaguing his mind to himself, that’ll it’ll slowly kill him from the inside but she can’t think of what to say to help him open up. Afterall, she’s basically a stranger to him. And matters of the heart are the most personal kind of conflict there is, she wouldn’t share this type of information with her closest best friends, let alone a random passerby who caught her in emotional turmoil. 

Ámbar lets out a heavy sigh, her arms moving to hug herself across her waist. 

“You deserve better”.

Ámbar turns her head quickly towards the boy in surprise at his statement, “Sorry?” she asks for clarification.

“You deserve better than to be cheated on like that” He restates, his tone so certain that she almost believes him. 

Ámbar restrains herself against the desire to shake her head denying his opinion, “You don’t even know who I am, for all you know I could be a horrible person who deserves it”.

She definitely is, that’s not up for debate, but she’s accepted herself in all her disastrous glory a long time.

“Come on, everyone knows the famous actress Ámbar Smith”. 

For some reason she really didn’t expect him to know her identity outside of being Matteo’s girlfriend, which is stupid because she’s far more famous than Matteo but she kind of assumed the guitarist ignored her presence as much as she ignored his. It makes her feel a little guilty that he didn’t. And also a little boastful, which was alarming because that meant she cared about his opinion, which almost never happened with people she just recently met.

“Well, not even my status could keep Matteo committed to our relationship.” She was going to leave the conversation at that, finish it with minimal personal information but she feels like if she doesn’t get the next words out soon she never will and the pressure against her chest is making it hard for her to breathe. “I don't know what else I could have done to keep him distracted.”

Simón questions her odd word choice, “Distracted?” 

“Distracted from the fact that he didn’t love me”.

Her words are said with such lack of doubt that leaves Simón feeling muddled, “I’m sure he loved you”.  _ Why else would two people date for so long, even if he didn’t anymore, he must have at some point at least. _

Ámbar shakes her head, smiling sadly. “No, what we had wasn’t love, it was barely like”. She chokes out the last word with a laugh.

“I don’t understand”.

Ámbar turns to look at him, searching for the right words to explain to him how she got herself in that mess in the first place, she’s so concentrated on the task at hand that she doesn’t even realize he’s staring back just as intensely. 

“When Matteo and I got together, it wasn’t because we had feelings for each other. It was because we could see ourselves together,  _ well _ , we could see the version of ourselves that we pretended to be in public together”. It was never a verbal agreement that the initiation of their relationship was one based on disingenuous emotions but considering that neither one of them was really ecstatic about going out, it sort of became a silent understanding.

“I guess, I grew too comfortable with him and started to think of us as something real”. Two and a half years with a person can do that. “I never stopped to think that he was still faking his feelings for me”. She didn’t think being apart from him could create a heartbreak like this, the swirling toxic mass within her was leaving a gaping hole in her chest and she doesn’t think anything can fix it.

She could feel her chest heaving with the exasperation rolling over her in waves. She'd wanted more from him. Stupidly so, when he obviously only came to her when he needed her help, when he wanted something from her. Ámbar thinks back to when he played a slow song for her to critique. It was about love at first sight, and finding a part of your soul in someone else. He sent it over text and when Ámbar played it, in the quiet of her big bedroom, she had to cover her mouth to control her sobs. At the time, she thought he wrote it for her. She was  _ so _ happy to finally have someone love her. She should have known from the moment he compared the girl in the song to have a voice that could soothe the tallest waves that it wasn’t about her. The only thing Ámbar’s voice could do was start a tsunami, it wasn’t in her nature to calm anything. She could only destroy.

Seconds pass in silence but feel like hours as Ámbar criticizes herself for what she just said that completely dragged down the mood.  _ Why did she say all that? What was she thinking, talking so openly? She sat with him to make him feel better about his situation, not drag him down with all her problems.  _

Ámbar moves to brush her hair to one side of neck and twirling the ends with her fingers, finding anything to busy herself with, anything to help her hold all her broken parts together so she didn’t completely shatter in front of him.

“I used to think that Luna and I would be together forever.” His voice is startling and Ámbar finds herself frozen in her seat as she listens, “That we were meant to be. Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic but I would think about how  _ cool _ it would be when we actually started dating and people would ask how we met that I would be able to answer that I fell in love with her when she hit me with a toy shovel in the sand box during recess when we were young”.

His jaw is tensed and Ámbar has a very clear sight of the jutting line, close enough in fact that she’s just a hand movement away from touching it, touching him. She finds it odd that she wants to, that she wants to take his shoulders and push them down so they’re not as strained and to take his mouth and touch it with hers until it’s not set in such a low frown. She tries to subtly shake the cloudy thoughts from her head, she mentally repeats that she’s just in shock from what Matteo did and wants to get back at him and that she’s not in the right state of mind. 

Simón has no clue of the inner conflict fighting in Ámbar, instead finishing his monologue, “I thought that the fact that we’d been friends for such a long time meant that we were soulmates, not that we were meant to be ‘ _ just friends’ _ for eternity. I don’t blame her though, I should have confessed earlier, I should have seen that she didn’t feel the same way, what kind of best friend am I when I didn’t even know she was in love with Matteo--”

His words trail off until they’re nothing left but a whispered secret between them two.

“Nothing lasts,” Ámbar breaks the silence, and there’s a little crack in her voice as she continues, “You think it’s going to. Even after all the disappointment and rejection and building walls around your heart so no one can hurt you anymore, people walk into your life with fake confidence and deceitful intentions and convince you that they’re the outlier, that they’ll be the one to stay. And you believe them. You give them a chance and they stay just long enough to give you hope and you think, ‘Finally.  _ Finally _ , here’s something I can hold on to,’ but it always slips away. As soon as they get what they need from you they leave.”

He wasn’t expecting her to answer with that, and she can tell that she’s stumped him with her most recent realization. Even as her eyes wander aimlessly to avoid his stare she can feel him searching for the right words. In her skin, in her soul, she can feel it.

“What about you?”

Her lips part with a slow, slick, mesmerizing drag as she takes in what he settled on, “Excuse me?”

This time more sure that this is where he wants to take the conversation, he repeats,“What about you? When everyone leaves, what do  _ you _ do?”

“I stopped worrying about me a long time ago”. 

At a lack of a reaction from the guitarist, Ámbar makes the mistake of catching his gaze and her stomach drops at the way he makes her feel so exposed, as if he can see what she’s thinking before even she can scramble the jumbled mess in her head. Which she knows is impossible, she’s spent an entire lifetime making herself unreadable to the naked eye, she doesn’t understand why it doesn’t seem to work on him.

The air is noticeably hotter and heavier than it was earlier and before either of them notice, a natural pull attracts them to close the space between them until even an exhale could push them to touch, lips on lips.

She almost lets it happen, it would be so easy, a simple escape from reality and revenge at Matteo all rolled in one. It would also be a mistake, and she’s made way too many of those recently, she doesn’t want to add another one to the list. And it’s not like the last time she kissed someone out of convenience went very well.

“Um, we probably shouldn’t”. She murmurs quietly, huffs of her breath landing on his lips.

There’s a shadow that passes over his eyes, it’s gone almost as soon as it appeared making Ámbar unsure if she really saw it or if it was just a trick of the light, and he pauses, almost to make sure that she’s standing by her statement before he shuffles away adding,  “Right, no you’re right, sorry”.

She reassures him that it’s fine, they both just got too caught up in their misery to think things through. His posture is stiff and his expression blank as Ámbar makes an excuse about how it’s getting late and she needs to get home. Except it’s not really an excuse because she really  _ does _ need to get home, the night completely got away from her and for those few moments forgot completely about the dreaded paparazzi and gossip and how she was going to escape it all. So they quickly exchange goodbyes before Ámbar scurries off to figure out what the hell just happened.

She can feel his eyes following her, even as she walks away. Her last thought before leaving through the luxurious doors of the mansion is that they are entirely too compatible and no good can come of it.


	2. And Forget In The Mornin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The three girls have spent their entire lives coexisting together. From their very first meeting at Ámbar’s fifth birthday party, that turned more into a publicity stunt than the disney princess gathering she had begged her godmother for. Jazmín had spilt fruit punch soda all over Delfi’s baby blue dress and Ámbar had dragged them both upstairs and agreed to let Delfi borrow one of her dresses if they promised they’d meet back at her place the next day for a tea party. And they did. More than once. So much so, in fact, that Sharon forbade tea parties after the third time they fought over who got the last cookie and accidently knocked the expensive china teapot off the table and watched in alarm as it shattered. 
> 
> The rest of their friendship is history. As Ámbar has grown she’s always been able to count on the fact that her best friends were growing right alongside her, even when Ámbar fell a little behind and found herself windswept in the flurry that was fame and Hollywood, they slowed down their own growth, just enough for her to catch up and then promptly held her hand so she wouldn’t get lost again during the journey."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and chapter names taken from the song "Let's Fall In Love For The Night " by FINNEAS.

**_Untouchable top tier actress slumming it with new boy band guitarist?_ **

_ The night of the 16th mixed media award show, renowned actress Ámbar Smith was found casually conversing with Simón Alvarez, guitarist and lead singer of a newly established boy band [they go by the name of Rollerband.] _

_ The two were found closely interacting in a secluded section of the manor during the after party. A photo of them kissing has been leaked by paparazzi and quickly became a trending topic under the tag #simbar on all social media networks. Fans of both figures have come together to encourage whatever relationship is blossoming between them.  _

_ Meanwhile many people are finding themselves questioning the validity of this new involvement as that very night Matteo Balsano [Ámbar’s boyfriend at the time of the ceremony] confessed his feelings for Luna Valente [a rookie actress best known for her role as protagonist in trashy telenovelas and main features in the Rollerband music videos] before collecting his award for ‘Best New Individual Artist’. The public is still unsure if this confession is evidence that Matteo has been cheating on Ámbar for a duration of their relationship or if they simply cut things off behind closed doors and had yet to inform the public. _

_ This entangling web of relationships becomes further complicated when taking into account the alleged conflict between Luna and Ámbar.  _

_ The drama between these two first escalated when an audio clip of Luna was released where her distinctive voice announced bitterly that she disagreed with the ‘TOP TEN BEST PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR’ list that is published annually by the Institute [An exclusive board comprised of top tier producers, writers and directors who often predict award winning actors.] _

_ It’s in this audio clip Luna is caught stating, “Ámbar Smith shouldn’t even be in the top 100 performences, let alone top 10. I can’t believe she placed higher than me when she can’t convey any emotion in her acting. What idiot executive decided that?” _

_ During that time Luna’s supporters plummeted because of this childish reaction to the list, this plunge however quickly bounced back when Ámbar tweeted a harsh response with, “@LunaValente, it was probably the same executive who ignored the fact that you think acting is really just bursting into tears at all times. Get back to me when you figure out how to make any facial expression other than distraught. ”  _

_ The tweet blew up, encouraging millions of retweets within the hour and causing one of the biggest celebrity scandals of Argentina this year. Many fans concluded that it was unfair of Ámbar to respond since it’s never been confirmed that the voice truly belonged to Luna while others believe that even if it was really her in the audio clip, the statement didn’t warrant such a harsh response.  _

_ Either way this dispute boosted both women’s fame painting Luna as another innocent victim to ice queen Ámbar’s wicked words and their managers milked the gossip as publicity for each of the individual’s personal projects until the entire ordeal quieted down. However, in a matter of minutes, Matteo Balsano reignited this rivalry with his love confession to Luna.  _

_ Currently no management agencies of those involved are willing to come out with an explanation [Not even ChicaChic the hotspot for Argentinian celebrity gossip run by Ámbar Smith’s close friends], however Matteo’s media representative has publicly announced on instagram that, “This is simply an unfortunate misunderstanding and Matteo Balsano will soon come out with the facts on his own terms. We can only ask the fans to remain patient and continue supporting Matteo in all his pursuits in the meantime”  _

_ Once again we are left with more questions than answers about Ámbar Smith and Matteo Balsano’s relationship. Keep checking back for incoming news that we’ll be the first to announce.  _

**_Mambarhearts:_ ** _ I can’t believe Ámbar and Matteo are over. They belong with each other 💔💔💔 _

**_Balsano_obsessed:_ ** _ @Mambarhearts you’re kidding right. she’s always such a bitch to him, he deserves better  _

**_Ámbaradoptme:_ ** _ @Balsano_obsessed Oh so he cheats on Ámbar and suddenly she’s the bitch??? Explain the logic here. _

**_MyQueenÁmbarSmith:_ ** _ The fact that even this article said Luna’s biggest role is in trashy telenovelas Hahaha!  _

**_Balsano_obsessed:_ ** _ @Ámbaradoptme this is what’s wrong with all Ámbar fans, we don’t even know he cheated. stop making assumptions! _

**_LunaanAngel:_ ** _ Can people stop shaming Luna for this, it’s not her fault everyone falls in love with her _

**_TeleNovelaBinger:_ ** _ This is such gibberish, who even reads this crap. _

**_Lutteo4ever:_ ** _ @LunaanAngel HAHAHA! The accuracy!! _

**_simonismyhusband:_ ** _ I can’t be the only one majorly shipping #simbar now right? _

**_matteoenamoured:_ ** _ Matteo def did not cheat, stop spreading these rumours _

**_RollerbandOwnsmyHeart:_ ** _ @simonismyhusband Could you imagine their power?!? The two hottest celebs in the industry. _

**_Loving_Lutteo_OTP:_ ** _ @RollerbandOwnsmyHeart You did not just call Simón hotter than Matteo!?!? _

**_RolleristaForLife:_ ** _ @matteoenamoured You really need to stop placing your idol on such a high pedestal, he’s really not all that _

**_LunanAngel_ ** _ : I really don’t understand why anyone would prefer Matteo with Ámbar, I mean she’s so boring and pretentious. I bet dates with her are like talking to a brick wall. _

**_Matteossmile:_ ** _ Stream Matteo’s new song everyone!!! _

* * *

Mornings are supposed to be calm. Ámbar Smith’s mornings, in particular, are beyond orderly. No matter the amount of empty champagne bottles cluttered at the side of her bed from the night before or the hours she spent staring at the ceiling before finally succumbing to sleep, Ámbar always starts off her day with the ascendance of the sun. It’s rays enveloping her aching body in warmth as she blinks away her drowsiness.

The sort of routine she has built over the years of living alone in her loft are somewhat of a comfort to her. She cherishes the way the steps are ingrained in her mind more than any script of lines ever could. She relies on the ability to walk through her mornings absentmindedly, without her subconscious overthinking each minute action, a feeling that’s a rarity to her.

Today, though, today was an exception. In fact, every morning for the past week could be categorized on the opposite scale of calm and orderly. One might even say  _ chaotic _ .

Ámbar read somewhere, probably from one of the random stacks of magazines laid out in her agency’s office, that it takes someone approximately a third of the amount of time they were in a relationship to get over the breakup. Using that equation she figures that she won’t stop feeling the pang of betrayal piercing through her heart every time she so much as thinks of the boy until over a year has passed. Seeing how she has to start filming a new movie with him and the very girl he cheated with, in less than a month, it is safe to say that she does  _ not  _ have that time to waste.

Instead, to quicken the process, she focuses her efforts on grieving the downfall of their dynasty throughout the long weekend. 

The evidence of this mourning period remains scattered across her room. Bare boxes of low calorie lavish gourmet chocolate truffles are piled up on top of each other in her gold metal trash bin. A lone container of cheap fudge ice cream sits beside them, proving once again that expensive comfort food is purely a myth invented by celebrity dieticians and Hollywood directors. 

In worse shape than the disastrous surroundings around her is Ámbar herself, still lying in bed and on her phone at noon. The glaringly bright screen facing her doesn’t do much to hide her messy hair plopped in a high bun or the raging dark circles heavily contrasting the rest of her naked pale face. Fortunately for Ámbar, she found herself too caught up in the gossip article she was scrolling through to care very much about her appearance.

When she said, on the night of the award show, that she wanted to find some drama to distract the paparazzi with, this was not exactly what she meant. 

_ “Untouchable top tier actress slumming it with new boy band guitarist” _

The sentence blurs together as she reads it for a fifth time that day, more slowly this time, as if that will magically change the words to a far less dangerous meaning. 

She can hear her godmother’s voice now, the disappointment in her tone causing goosebumps all along Ámbar’s skin, “Really, Ámbar? Is this  _ really _ the way you want to be known in this industry? And with  _ that _ boy of all people, have I not taught you better?”

Even when she was only a figment of Ámbar’s subconscious, the woman still managed to make her skin crawl. 

It’s not even like they had  _ done _ anything that night. Ámbar was sure to shoot that idea down the second it was brought up. Yet somehow the photo attached to the feature made it seem like they did. The photographer was angled to the side, creating an illusion that Ámbar and the boy were sitting much closer to each other than either would ever dare. 

The photo must have been taken from afar, the blurry fragments on the screen revealing a zoom was used to get such a close shot, yet the picture still seemed to encompass so much with it’s poor clarity. Ámbar’s eyes were clearly hazy when the photo was taken,  _ thinking back now she was most definitely at least a little intoxicated,  _ and both of their faces were tilted forward, making it seem like the two were actually kissing. Thankfully the boy’s face was turned away otherwise she’d be worried that the camera would catch glimmering traces of tears on his face, revealing the devastated state they both were in. Instead his face was only obvious enough for the band’s obsessed fans to recognize it as their beloved group’s member. 

Ámbar is torn between exhaling a sigh of relief or heaving a heavier one of exhaustion.

Deciding on neither, she instead pushes her phone away from her side, sending it tilting dangerously on the edge of her bed. 

She’s supposed to be ready to go out for brunch by now. The girls and her had decided on trying out a new restaurant a while ago and planned for today seeing as neither of them had any other conflicting schedules, a feat that didn’t happen often. Since waking up this morning though she knew she wouldn’t be in the mood to go out. Going out meant paparazzi and getting ready properly, both concepts which were already giving her a headache just thinking about them.

She wonders how much Jazmín would hate her if she called and canceled their plans.

Before Ámbar has a chance to test her theory a loud knock interupts her serenity and Jazmín strides into her house without invitation. Behind her Delfi follows, speaking apologetically, “She had a feeling you were going to bail on us.” 

“And I was right too, as always.” 

Ámbar stares at Delfi who in return sends over a sympathetic look as Jazmín starts trying to get Ámbar out of her bed. The blonde groans, pushing her face deeper into her pillow as Jazmín rips the blanket off her.

“You haven’t even started to get ready! You’re totally ruining my group photo moment and this one was going to go on the homepage of the blog” Ámbar turns her head to the side to glance at her as she explains, “the pose only works with three people.”

Ámbar presses her face back into her pillow, there was nothing that could get her out of her bed. Nothing. Not a single thing— 

“Ámbar! Please, we need you!”

Jazmín’s tone is desperate and she’s still pulling on Ámbar’s arm, begging her to snap out of her slump. It’s because of the earnest pleading that Ámbar decides, begrudgingly, to go out with them after all. At the very least one of them should be happy today, if Jazmín wanted a group photo, she would get a group photo.

Reaching for her hairbrush, she starts the process of getting ready by unraveling her hair from the birdnest it was slowly becoming and detangling the curls. 

“I can’t believe you’re actually so sad about this.” 

Ámbar blinks, glancing back at Jazmín, this time in confusion. It was obvious even without being explicitly said, exactly what,  _ or rather who _ , Jazmín was talking about. Out of the corner of her eye she catches Delfi coming over to diffuse the situation but Ámbar puts her hand up, stopping her.

“What do you mean?” She asks, her tone carefully calculated.

Still not catching on to the drastic change of atmosphere around her, Jazmín continues, “I don’t know. I just— I guess I just didn’t think you would care about him.”

_ She wouldn’t care about him? Was her relationship so fucked up that not even her friends thought what they had was real? Online fans were one thing, they didn’t have all the information about her and Matteo, they couldn’t possibly make factual statements, but now even her friends, the people closest to her, were questioning it. _

Finding herself irrationally defensive she states, a little too loudly, “Of course I care. We were together for years. That didn’t just mean nothing!” 

Her voice isn’t blaring, it’s volume barely even above normal conversation level, the articulation behind each word is what gives away her anger. 

_ Was it all in her head? The happy moments they shared? She knows they were dysfunctional but there really were moments where she could have sworn they were both in love. Moments she thought he cherished just as much as she did. What did she do to make him so disgusted in her? So much so that he didn’t even tell her when falling in love with someone else. Was their connection really so weak? _

Delfi shakes her head from the other side of the room. Ámbar hates the way she’s looking at her, like she’s a little kid again. The same way Sharon would look at her when she tripped and fell after running too fast. Like she was watching Ámbar face the consequences of one of her mistakes, once again.

“You’re allowed to miss him. Just make sure it’s  _ him _ you miss and not his familiarity or his role protecting your reputation.” 

The words, meant to be comforting, instead cause her unease. She thinks back to comments on that photo, searching for answers in an ocean of judgement.  _ He was always unhappy when around her?  _ No, that can’t be true. He’s not that good of an actor, despite what he might think, and she vividly remembers joyful moments between them. Joyful moments that can’t be lessened despite recent events. So then it must be something else...

“Do you think I’m boring?” She asks Jazmín, knowing she would get a straightforward answer.

Jazmín ponders the question, twirling a strand of hair that’s fallen from her updo before replying, “Yeah a little, but it’s not a bad thing,” her hands move dramatically as she emphasizes with a bright smile, “you’re the dull that makes the vibrant, me, pop!”

Ámbar nods halfheartedly at Jazmín’s answer, aware that any response from her should be taken with a grain of salt. It makes sense though, her answer, that’s the part that has Ámbar spiraling. It makes sense. She’s not as cheery as Jazmín is, too pessimistic for her own good. Luna on the other hand, Luna was as bright as the fucking sun. Forget a cup half full, the cup was always overflowing with her. A fire could burn down her entire house and Luna would see it as an opportunity to redecorate. It makes sense why someone would be attracted to that. Ámbar’s sure that her negative thoughts and outward need to exclaim everything she feels and dislikes doesn’t exactly make her the best companion sometimes, but was that really a good enough reason for Matteo to cheat on him? 

She bets Luna is the type to make hot chocolate for someone when they’re having a bad day, she seems like the type to use the sugary hot liquid as a measure to soothe worries while talking them through their troubles. Matteo would love that. He always used to criticize the way she would handle comforting people around her. “You can’t just belittle other people’s feelings Ámbar,” he would say, “You have to let them experience each emotion until they move on.” She bets Luna is good at that. Ámbar was taught that repressing feelings, pushing them back down inside and faking a smile, was a much better way to walk through life. If she was going to let herself feel sad at every bad thing that happened, she'd be too exhausted to do anything else. Except pushing feelings down always ended in the catastrophic bomb of emotions that would eventually be set off, and she couldn’t afford that either so she needed some sort of outlet. It’s why she chose anger. It was so much easier to get mad and scream and fight then it was to cry.

She supposes he would prefer someone like Luna to comfort him, someone who can handle vulnerability and openness, not someone inverdently incapable of opening up. The only times they’d been that vulnerable with each other were on evenings where the parental pressures became too much for either to escape. He would spend hours explaining how his dad’s expectations were impossible to meet, how he couldn’t understand how any parent could be so strongly against their child’s happiness. He would promise her that one day the two of them would run away, “to an island, far away from this mess,” he’d say, “far away from the press, and our parents, and stupid opening day parties. We’d spend the whole day listening to music and drinking coconut water straight from the shell and stare out into the sunset each night.” She would roll her eyes and call him an idiot for wasting time daydreaming instead of working on his album. She bets Luna likes coconuts. She bets Luna would let him continue daydreaming. 

Delfi’s stern voice snaps Ámbar out of her haze, “Is that what people are writing online?” Her arms crossed against her chest and her eyes have narrowed significantly. There’s a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach at her friend’s protective expression. 

Delfi takes her silence as confirmation and scolds softly, “I told you to stop reading those gossip sites.”

Ámbar wasn’t one to be affected by the tabloids. Her entire life she was exposed to the cruel lengths people would go to for money. An unflattering photo of her gut sticking out in a dress here, a malicious photo of her in a towel coming from the shower taken through a window there. It all caused her to grow thicker skin. Skin that was impenetrable to a fault. If anything, she was probably the least likely to be affected by something so petty out of the three of them. Even so, all armor has weak points and once those weak points are exploited, the rest of the armor comes tumbling down. 

Jazmín, slowly having lost interest in the conversation and now browsing through tinder, becomes involved again at the mention of gossip sites, “Except ours, you should always read ours!”

Ámbar smiles at the lightheartedness of her comment. It’s always easier to ignore vicious self-critical thoughts with Jazmín’s all encompassing loudness.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Ámbar announces loudly.

And just like that, at the command of her voice the heavy atmosphere is lifted and an imitation of peace is restored. 

Ámbar’s sure that Delfi will bring the subject back up when they’re alone, but for now she just smiles amused as Ámbar registers, “Are you wearing my shirt?” 

It’s then that Jazmín stands abruptly, glittery pink sleeves flailing as she twirls, “Isn’t it pretty, it fits like it was made for me.”

She’s not wrong. The bejeweled silk top fit her perfectly, the straps just long enough that the neckline stops right at her collarbones, showing off her freckled decolletage. Ámbar’s not going to tell her any of that though, not when she stole the shirt right from her closet, especially not when Jazmín’s inflated ego has her standing in front of Ámbar’s closet mirror, admiring her reflection.

“I know it’s pretty,  _ I _ bought it,” The top was designer, as always, and one of a kind. She found the beauty on an outing with Sharon when she dragged them into the small outlet shop to avoid conversation. It was the only time they spent together in the past year that hadn’t ended in tears and resentment and Ámbar thinks deep down that it was partially due to magical top. 

Even Sharon found a couple things for herself in the store and she still remembers the vivid look on Rey’s face when they ordered him to carry their bags as they walked along the boardwalk. Ámbar bought a silver bracelet for Matteo that day, one that she was planning to give him on their upcoming anniversary just days before the disastrous breakup. It was sitting lonely in her nightstand drawer now, she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. 

Ámbar’s brows furrow at the realisation, “I haven’t even worn it yet, when did you steal that?”

“The day of the award show, I was going to wear it to the afterparty but Delfi warned me it probably wasn’t wise to wear it front of you”

The betrayal isn’t lost on her, “You knew!?” 

Delfi’s eyes have widened in horror now, not expecting to get thrown into the crossfire of their bickering, “In my defense, I didn’t know this was a new top.”

Ámbar squeezes the handle of the brush, still in her hand, before gently placing it on her vanity.

“Give it back,” she demands, reaching her hand out, as if expecting Jazmín to take off the top right there and then.

Jazmín stares at her for a quick second before rolling her eyes and turning around back towards the mirror, “Oh come on, it looks better on me anyway. Just let me keep this one. You kept my Alexander Mcqueen boots.” 

Her mouth falls open at Jazmín’s blatant disrespect and Ámbar makes the executive decision to ignore that last statement, despite its credibility, and scoffs. While attempting to close the distance between her and Jazmín, she gets a glance of herself in the mirror and nearly winces. Her hair was more pliant now but the rest of her still looked like a warzone. 

The puffiness of her face can’t be helped, the only thing that could fix that was a week of juice cleansing, but the redness she could at least cover with some concealer. 

Deeming her appearance more important than the conflict at hand she finishes with, “Fine, you can keep it for now but I expect it back in perfect condition,” before returning to her vanity. Pulling out the necessary products, she gets started on cleaning up, the tornado of an argument long forgotten. If Jazmín was set on dragging her out of the house and was accompanying her in that top then Ámbar was damn well going to look just as good, if not better.

As she finishes adding on a highlight on her cheekbones, she watches suspiciously while Jazmín sets down a Chanel lipstick in front of her.

“We were sent the new collection to review the shades online, this one would go well with your skin tone. Consider it a peace offering,” the girl adds bashfully before joining Delfi, doing god knows what in her closet.

Ámbar smiles as she twists open the tube, unveiling the most fiery unnatural colour of red she’s ever seen. She paints her lips the dazzling shade of ruby, feeling a bit more ready to take on the day. 

Once satisfied with the reflection looking back at her, she waits there for a second, waiting to see if the girls are going to return from their impromptu meeting in her closet, but to no avail. She’s left only with silence and the quiet buzz of their whispering. 

Her steps are quiet and carefully calculated as she makes her way toward them. They don’t notice her presence and continue mumbling, both of them huddled over Delfi’s phone.

“You could at least make an attempt at being discreet,” Her voice startles them so much that the phone goes clattering face down onto the carpet, surprising even Ámbar with their reaction. 

“Ámbar, we weren’t expecting you here,” Delfi’s words are just as scrambled as her movements as she reaches to pick up the dropper item.

“You weren’t expecting me… in my own closet?” 

_ Seriously, she was starting to get weirded out by them.  _ She knows they’re only trying to look out for her, like the many times she’s done the same for them, but honestly at this point the curiosity was going to kill her before the drama did. 

Their frenzied faces remind her of when Jazmín and her went through the same process with Delfi. When all the news tabloids could talk about was the kiss Delfi and Pedro shared at the Rollerband’s concert, who at the time only had one hit song out, they were put in charge of making sure no gossip or judgement online reached Delfi’s ears. She’s pretty sure they did a lot better job than whatever Delfi and Jazmín were trying to pull now. They acted like Ámbar couldn’t tell whenever they were lying.

The three girls have spent their entire lives coexisting together. From their very first meeting at Ámbar’s fifth birthday party, that turned more into a publicity stunt than the disney princess gathering she had begged her godmother for. Jazmín had spilt fruit punch soda all over Delfi’s baby blue dress and Ámbar had dragged them both upstairs and agreed to let Delfi borrow one of her dresses if they promised they’d meet back at her place the next day for a tea party. And they did. More than once. So much so, in fact, that Sharon forbade tea parties after the third time they fought over who got the last cookie and accidently knocked the expensive china teapot off the table and watched in alarm as it shattered. 

The rest of their friendship is history. As Ámbar has grown she’s always been able to count on the fact that her best friends were growing right alongside her, even when Ámbar fell a little behind and found herself windswept in the flurry that was fame and Hollywood, they slowed down their own growth, just enough for her to catch up and then promptly held her hand so she wouldn’t get lost again during the journey.

They knew her better than any person ever could, most times even better than herself, and they also usually knew what was best for her. If it’s something they feel so strongly that she shouldn’t see then it must be something that she would be better off never seeing. She should let them protect her, she should help them help her and just walk from the closet, pretending she never even noticed anything was wrong. That being said, she’s never quite done anything she was supposed to, and now was not the time to start.

With motions much smoother than Delfi’s unhinged hands, she reaches for the phone and finds the post they were both losing their minds over.

**_HOLLYWOOD NEWS:_ **

_ Matteo Balsano publicly RSVPs to movie screening and premiere of ‘Dancing In The Wind’ a movie starring his ex-girlfriend Ámbar Smith.  _

Her chest tightens and she feels a similar feeling of dread stirring inside her.

She could cry, she really could. 

The tears would easily pool in her eyes. She hasn’t fully cried yet over him, the single tear that escaped during her talk with the guitarist doesn’t count. She was too intoxicated then to have full capability of controlling herself.

She doesn’t though. She won’t be that pathetic, won’t be that weak. Instead she searches within herself for anger. She would be mad at him instead, she’d allow herself that much.

“How dare he?” 

The words are bitter and sharp and she barely recognizes her own voice. 

Delfi huffs out a breath as she starts in that perpetually soft voice, made only for situations like this,“Ámbar.”

“No, really, how dare he? First he ruins the award ceremony and now he wants to wreck  _ my  _ movie screening?” She hates how hurt she sounds, hates how even with all the mental preparation she’s done to get over what he did, just the mention of his name can make them all go flying out the window. If either of the girls notice the way her voice shakes they don’t say anything.

“He’s probably not doing it to spite you,” Delfi tries to say reassuringly but Ámbar notices from the way her eyes are fixed on her phone the real motive behind the empty words.

“No?” Ámbar responds sarcastically, but not before handing back the device and crossing her arms across her chest, “Then why  _ is  _ he doing it?”

The question isn’t a genuine one, she couldn’t care less why he’s making an enemy out of her, even more than he initially did by cheating on her. For all she knows it could just be his agency trying to get more attention from Ámbar’s fame, but the way Delfi and Jazmín share a look has her wondering what the answer could be.

Ámbar’s eyes narrow, “What?”

Jazmín is the one to answer this time, “Remember when you said Luna had a short feature in the movie?”

Ámbar shakes her head no, trying to gather her thoughts and ignore the way her heart sinks to her stomach. She doesn’t like what Jazmín is insinuating, doesn’t like it one bit.

“He tweeted something else too. Says he shouldn’t be worried about the public’s reaction to him going because it’s not just your premiere, it’s for Luna too and he wants to be there to support her.”

_ Support _ . She almost laughs at the thought. He doesn’t give a shit about support. He never supported her, not once did he show up to her events when they were a couple and now they were broken up and he was suddenly finding himself wanting to attend?

Jazmín’s still reading off his tweet and adds, “He says that we don't even know if you're going to show up because you didn’t respond.”

She won’t let him get away with this, she is just about done having him turn the tables on her every time he got caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing, “Oh, I’ll show him a response.”

“No,” Delfi interrupts, “You won’t.” Her tone allows no room for objection. 

Ámbar purses her lips but Jazmín speaks before she can think of a valid reason why she definitely should, “Just ignore him, he’s baiting you, it’s not worth getting angry over.”

Except it  _ is _ worth getting angry over, because he’s going to  _ win _ if she doesn’t. She can’t be nonchalant about this, it’s not possible.

“If he thinks I’m just going to fade into obscurity and let him revel in the glory of fame that he wouldn’t even have without me, then he’s got another thing coming.”

Jazmín has left the room again to rummage through the closet,  _ were her clothes really more important the pressing matter at hand? _ , but her voice still echoes, “Who cares? You’re doing great, you don’t need him in your life.”

Ámbar thinks about this for a moment, she  _ is _ doing great, she has a lot of things going for her, “Right, who cares what Matteo and his stupid little possey of wannabes think.”

“Exactly,” Delfi cheers, glad to finally have her friend regaining some sense of self.

Jazmín’s voice is even more muffled as she exclaims, “You say it girl!”`

Their cheerful faces and women empowering women ideology is broken as Ámbar continues, “Hell, I’ll show him in person how little I care.”

Delfi leans her head back against the wall, closing her eyes in frustration, willing herself to find some patience, “No, not exactly where we were going with that.”

But Ámbar’s too caught up in a roll to realize anything other than her growing spite against him, “I’m gonna show up to the premiere with a new boyfriend, a hotter more famous boyfriend than he ever could be and show them all how little I care.”

Exasperated, Delfi places a hand on Ámbar’s shoulder patting it comfortingly before answering, slightly done with life, “Okay, sure, you can do that. How about we take it one day at a time.”

Finally emerging from the closet holding one of Ámbar’s ‘Zimmermman’ halter neck satin dresses in a light periwinkle, Jazmín announces, “And right now you’re going to wear this killer outfit, come to brunch with your favorite people and walk out with your head held tall.”

She could do this, no scratch that, she  _ would _ do this. She is going to move on, she is going to date someone else, someone better, by the time of the screening, and she is going to prove everyone who has ever doubted her wrong. Because the only other option was giving up, and Ámbar was not a quitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go!!! Please take this chapter of Ámbar Smith self-reflection and my favourite Chicas Así friendship to entertain yourself during this quarantine filled time.
> 
> For real though, stay safe, don't go outside, and emerge yourself in all your favourite fandoms to pass the time. That's what I've been up to.
> 
> This chapter was cut in half, because it was starting to get ridiculously long, but that means that you'll all have to wait for the next chapter to read some Ámbar and Simón interactions. Hopefully the wait won't be long, or at the very least it will be worth it. Also, it will be Simón's perspective, and we all know how I feel about writing in his perspective.
> 
> As always, I have a tumblr (theuniversezecho) where you can reach me with your ideas, prompts or suggestions! Thank you for reading!


	3. Play Me A Song That You Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon smiles softly at his shoes once hearing that determined edge back in her voice. There she is.
> 
> “Well if there’s anything that you ever need—”
> 
> “There is.”
> 
> Simon’s offer hadn’t been an empty one. He truly meant that he would help her with whatever it was she needed him for. He just— didn’t expect her to come up with one so fast.
> 
> “There is?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and chapter names taken from the song "Let's Fall In Love For The Night " by FINNEAS.

Simón’s first thought, staring down at the instagram photo on his screen, is that her hair is shorter than he remembers it being that night of the event. He could have sworn the blonde curls were long enough to reach further down than her shoulders. In fact, he remembers staring at them, remembers watching one piece bounce free from her hair-do and fall framing her delicate face. It’s likely she got it cut recently, possibly because of her prick of an ex-boyfriend. He hopes his suspicions are wrong though, it would be a shame for her to allow him any more power in her life. 

His second thought,  _ that he’s ashamed to say doesn’t come until much later _ , is that when Pedro passed over his phone with Jazmín’s instagram page open on the screen, it was probably an indication that Simón was supposed to be finding interest in the redhead,  _ not _ her newest post about a certain bestfriend. He couldn’t help it, Ámbar Smith was hypnotic. 

Despite his friend’s desperate attempts at setting him up with different girls throughout the past week, nothing has been able to quiet the ache from that night. 

That night where a certain brunette shattered his heart and a blonde cut herself on the pieces while trying to put it back together. 

A part of him still loves Luna. He doesn’t think he could ever entirely stop. Not when he has spent so many years chasing after her. Not when he looks back on his life and realizes almost all of his memories, certainly all the happy ones, include her. Not when the two friends have synced their lives together so coherently that he can’t quite tell where his ends and hers begins. He traveled across countries for her without a second thought and even after she chose someone else, he would still drop everything for her. When he loved, he loved deeply and passionately. He loved the way blood flowed in his veins, loved like he breathed oxygen, loved with every passing minute of the day, effortlessly and unconditionally. A part of him will always love Luna.

It’s just that, the more he thinks about it, the more that part of himself is moved to the section of his heart where other nostalgic pieces of him lie, like the first callus on his finger from playing guitar and the sound of his grandmother’s voice whispering ‘ Que sueñes con los angelitos ’ and tucking him in at night. He thinks maybe that’s where it should stay, it’s clear that for Luna it never moved in the first place and every day Simón feels a little more ready to accept that. 

Loving Luna means wanting her to be happy no matter what, and if Matteo makes her happy, well, there’s not much else he can do is there?

He would be lying if he didn’t admit it was easier to let things,  _ like what could have been with Luna _ , go when his mind is preoccupied with Ámbar. 

The girl who seemed to appear out of nowhere,  _ the girl who sat next to him on those marble stairs where they each shared a piece of their soul _ , and then disappeared just as fast.

He’s not really sure why his mind keeps replaying that night. It’s not even the actual event he has on repeat but rather the quiet moment afterwards, as he watched her walk away from him and his kiss. He was bewitched by her. 

There were so many things he wanted to know, so many things he wanted to ask, none of them appropriate considering they haven’t even talked since that night. Not that Simón was expecting for her to reach out, she was an A-list actress born into the world of movie premieres and expensive champagne while he somehow stumbled into it all with no expectations and only a dream of playing music to guide him. 

Maybe that’s why he finds himself so compelled to her, because the rest of the world sees her as such a cruel person, they see her as entitled and bitchy and self-obsessed, and maybe she is, he doesn’t know her at all. All he knows is that she stopped for him. He watched her glance at the door a total of three times before deciding to sit down next to him, _ three times _ , he had never seen a person so eager to leave. 

She didn’t though. She listened to him grieve and reminiscence, and when he gave her an out, gave her permission to finally escape the suffocating room filled with feelings and resentment, she opened up to him instead and chose to unravel the facade that was her relationship with Matteo. It comforted him more than she would ever know. More than it probably ever should.

Simón knows he shouldn’t feel so special at getting a glimpse of the real Ámbar Smith. After all, the only reason she revealed such intimate details about herself is because she never expected in a million years to bump into him again. 

They ran different social circles, belonged to different economic groups, went to different daily hangouts, their only similarity was that their best friends had found love in each other and Delfi and Pedro had never brought them together before. The two barely had enough time together as it was, and their alone time was just that,  _ their _ time. 

And so she never expected to be forced to converse with him again. She certainly didn’t know he would be at brunch if her slightly gaping mouth and not so subtle glare towards Jazmín is anything to go by. Simón slips the phone back towards Pedro who puts it in his pocket before leaning over the table and giving his girlfriend a sweet kiss.

Delfi leans into the kiss, melting slightly into Pedro before apologizing, “I’m sorry we kept you waiting, it took us longer to get ready than expected.”

Pedro simply shakes his head before replying, “You're worth the wait.” 

The girls settle in their respective seats, Delfi beside Pedro, leaning towards him just enough that she can place her hand into his, Jazmín next to Simón, and Ámbar stuck in the middle, facing forward to Nico.

Simón tries to ignore the blatant stare Jazmín is sending his way as she asks, “You guys haven’t ordered yet?”

He clears his throat before responding, “No, we were waiting for you.”

The giggle that comes from Jazmín is charming and feminine and sweet. And so fake that Simón feels the familiar throb of a toothache. The kind he used to get as a kid after eating too many  buñuelos drenched in piloncillo syrup. 

“That’s so nice of you!”

Her manicured hands wave over a waitress who comes over to take their order in a bored, monotonous tone. The others order an array of foods, ranging from crepes to eggs benedict and a plate of toast for the table but once it reaches Ámbar’s turn there’s a stutter in the process.

“Um,”

Her hesitation is palpable as her eyes wander across the menu. 

The waitress doesn’t seem to mind, having worked so long the wait doesn’t phase her anymore. Delfi and Pedro are too busy lovingly chatting to the side and Jazmín is already on her phone doing a story showcasing where they are to notice anyone else at the table.

It’s after the second question Ámbar asks about one of the food options that Nico rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath to Simón, “What is she not used to having to pick out lunch by herself? Does her butler usually do it for her?”

Clearly not expecting to be overheard, Nico’s ears turn red as Ámbar turns to him, “No,” her smile is venomous and her eyes slitted, “my personal chef does.”

Simón hides his smile in the cuff of his jean jacket as Ámbar finishes the order with, “I’ll have three mimosas please, iced.”

It isn’t until all their food is placed on the table, piping hot and professionally plated, that Delfi watches the three bright orange glasses in front of Ámbar unimpressed, “Don’t you want to get something with a little more subsistence?”

Ámbar makes very distinctive eye contact with Nico who is looking anywhere but at her and then at Jazmín who has lazily stretched herself out over Simón’s arm, “I think this is exactly what I need to get me through the day.”

Simón was wrong before,  _ this _ is for sure the most disinclined he’s seen anyone in an event. 

His eyes are torn off her annoyed expression as Jazmín squeezes his bicep as a way to catch his attention as she drawls, “So, Simón, I never did quite get the chance to congratulate you for winning the award for best band.”

Rubbing at the sore spot on his arm he replies, “Uh, I guess I got too caught up to make it to the dinner party.”

For the first time since that night he feels Ámbar’s eyes on the side of his head. Her voice so quiet he almost believes he’s hallucinating it when she says, “Yeah, I think he was too distracted.”

He holds her gaze as she finishes with a teasing glint, he offers a small smile in response. Simón wonders if Jazmín saw the newest picture of him and Ámbar circulating online. He wonders if Ámbar told them at all. 

“I mean you must be so busy, what with the rising popularity!” Jazmín continues, oblivious, or rather ignoring, the way Ámbar tilts her head in mock interest, imitating her friend, as Simón watches mirthfully, “Any new tracks you’re planning on releasing soon?”

Simón uses the opportunity to further involve Ámbar, “Do you listen to our songs?” he asks, leaning forward across the table, his elbow narrowly missing the small pitcher of creamer set out for his coffee. Simón watches the edge of a smile creep across Ámbar’s mouth as she gently nudges the porcelain cup back to its position with a finger, stopping it from tilting.

“I do,” Jazmín responds cheerfully, her face falling slightly when she notices that Simón’s attention isn’t on her, “Oh, Ámbar.” 

Jazmín laughs then, a little mean-spiritedly, “I tried to play your music when we were in the car once, I don’t think Ámbar really appreciates what you do, not like I do.” she answers like Ámbar isn’t sitting right in front of him, as if she can’t answer herself.

He blinks then, studies the blonde curiously until a slanted smile stretches across his mouth, “You don’t like our music?”

“She calls it mediocre, unoriginal and uninspiring pop music!” Jazmín blurts out.

Ámbar hums, stopping Jazmín from whatever other announcement she might make, neither admitting to her words nor denying them.

“You really think our music is uninspiring?” He presses, because somehow her opinion matters to him. The opinion of this stranger he’s only ever spoken to twice now matters to him more than he would like to admit.

“No,” Ámbar whispers as she gives an open-mouth smile, “No, I don’t think anything about your music at all. I don’t waste my time on things like that.”

Simón chuckles as relief washes over him, not thinking was good, not thinking meant she didn’t yet hold an opinion about him, and  _ that _ he could work with.

“Give me three hours and I’ll change your mind.” Ámbar goes quiet for a second, and Simón has a brief moment of panic at the prospect that he said something wrong, but then he hears her let out a soft, admittedly begrudging huff of almost-laughter. He doesn’t even bother to duck his chin to hide his grin this time. 

Ámbar is drinking the last gulp of her second mimosa when Jazmín abruptly stands up, putting a hand on her jutting hip and holding out her phone in the other hand before stating, “The fans want pictures, I took one of the food but now I need candid shots in nature.”

Delfi’s eyes brighten, “Oooh, can we take couple pictures?” she asks a hesitant Pedro excitedly.   
  


Pedro softens at his girlfriend’s eager expression and gently cups her cheek in his palm while answering with, “Whatever you want.”

“Let’s go to the pathway over there, by the lake,” Delfi stands then reaches down and pulls Pedro up with her.

Simón watches the two affectionately, his heart squeezing a little at the sight of such a happy couple. “I’ll stay here and wait for the cheque,” he waves them off from his seat.

At this point even Nico has started following them and Simón side-eyes Ámbar cautiously, trying to seem subtle about his attentiveness on whether she’s going to join them. Apparently Jazmín has the same question because she yells out from a couple meters away, “Ámbar? Are you coming?”

Ámbar barely pays attention to her as she responds, “No, I think you have the perfect amount of people for a group photo without me.”

Jazmín huffs an annoyed sigh, crossing her arms across her chest, before rolling her eyes at Ámbar’s obvious passive aggressiveness before walking away.

Ámbar’s eyes are closed as she leans her head back against the chair, the warm rays of the sun gently caressing her pale skin, one hand holding her third mimosa and the other flipping down her sunglasses that were previously sitting on the top of her head. Delfi glances once more in her direction, opening her mouth like she had something else to add but decides against it, using the calm wave in chatter to leave with Pedro.

Simón has never been one to fidget in the face of silence. He doesn’t find it necessary to fill every waking second of the day with chatter, especially not when there’s nothing important to be said. He doesn’t force conversation. Not when moments of silence are the ones with the greatest potential to ignite heartfelt occasions or at the very least reveal chemistry lacking partners. He really should have known though, that Ámbar Smith would be an exception. 

It seems all he’s done since being left alone with Ámbar is rack his brain for something to say to break the silence.

Without the fading light of the moon or the shadowy corners of the empty mansion, Ámbar was glowing in broad daylight, making her presence a little nerve-wracking. 

Clearing his throat Simón takes a leap of faith, “So, what are you doing here?” 

Ámbar looks at him like he just asked her to strip naked and run around the block.  _ He regrets everything. _

She presses her lips into a thin line, her lip gloss incomprehensibly shiny as she looks over the rim of her sunglasses and sarcastically asks, “Why? Do I need your permission to go out with my friends?”

“No, I just mean,”  _ Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. _ “If you’re going to be so miserable, why come at all?”

Well, if they didn’t start off on awkward terms, this was certainly going to do it.

Ámbar scrunches her nose up in confused amusement.

“Not that, you have to be happy right now, I mean I certainly wouldn’t be if my boyfriend, not that I would have a boyfriend cause I’m not, not that there’s anything wrong with, I just mean, um-.”

For a split second he thinks Ámbar is going to get up and leave, offended at his words and done giving him a shot at whatever it is he’s attempting to do here. He watches her sit up properly in the wood stool, take off her sunglasses and fold their arms gently before placing them on the table. She puts down the brim filled glass beside them.

Interrupting his increasingly nonsensical, increasingly desperate, train of thought she answers, “You’re right, I  _ am _ miserable. I was tricked into being here.”

He blinks. Shakes his head. Then forces himself to answer.

“I guess we have something in common.” 

In a move that he will probably remember in regret every time he closes his eyes, he picks up his cup of coffee and holds it out to her, as if jeeringly cheering their mutual unfortune.

Ámbar quirks a brow, her gaze falling from Simón’s lopsided, hesitant grin to the china in his hand and back to his grin. She doesn’t make any move to put him out of his misery.

Her eyes glimmering teasingly she asks, “Was the ‘significant other cheating on us in favor of each other’ not enough similarity for you?”

Simón chokes out a laugh, “Technically Luna was never my girlfriend, just a crush,” he stops halfway through the sentence when he catches Ámbar leaning over the table, like he did moments earlier, and he forces himself to maintain eye contact while continuing, “A crush that apparently everyone knew about.”

A smile suddenly twitches at the corners of her mouth and Simón thinks wistfully that if he can get her to laugh at least once during this interaction then his life will be made.

“It’s good that you wear your heart on your sleeve. Refreshing.”

Her voice is softer now, unlike how he’s ever heard her before.

“Really?” he echoes, pointedly skeptical. “Because I’m starting to think that it just leads to more torment than worth.”

He doesn’t mean it, not really, maybe he does a little in the moment, but he knows his heart will stop it’s sorrow eventually, and when it does Simón will find the entire experience necessary for emotional evolution and dive head first into another passionate infatuation. He will never let the temporary heaviness of his heart prevent him from embracing the many wonders of the world, not permanently. He cared too much for that. He  _ felt _ too much for that. 

Pursing her lips, still gleaming and sticky with lip gloss,  _ he wonders what flavor it is, it has to be cherry right? because it’s deep and vibrant and red _ , she starts abruptly demanding, “No! Don’t say that, the moment people like you stop believing that honesty and authenticity is valuable is when it all really starts going to shit!”

He’s caught by surprise at how dead serious she is, like this is no longer a casual conversation between friends.  _ Friends? Is that what they were?  _ But rather a very earnest and weightly message she’s trying to engrave in his mind with her blazing focused eyes.

He can’t bring himself to ask the question that’s really jabbing at his mind, so instead he asks one he already knows the answer to, “People like me?”

“Yeah, you know,” she waves to his general direction like just that is enough for him to understand,  _ and to be fair it is, _ “people like you.”

He thinks her statement could be taken as an insult. Like most things she says, it wavers delicately and precariously on the edge of bold and brash.  _ Unlike _ most things she says, the words aren’t ear-splitting or booming or even noisy. No, they're quiet, sincere. He’s reminded again of their moment on the staircase, when even whispers seemed too loud and destructive. 

Simón opens his mouth to reply — to his dismay, nothing comes out.

He watches her watching him, the moment stretching out between them, neither of them daring to speak, neither of them willing to break the taut string of tension between their bodies, pulling the other closer. 

_ This is different. It’s never been like this before, has it? _

It’s in that moment that Simón starts to think his questions don’t quite matter as much as he thought they did. No answer she was willing to part with would answer his most important inquiry, the one that questioned what it was that created this moment between them. This all encompassing, frustratingly enigmatic bond that he felt the first time she bothered to give him the time of day. The same bond that he felt with an even stronger force now. The same bond that had him so ready to ignore every red flag spelt out on every magazine cover featuring an issue of her.

_ 7 tips on perfecting the ‘Ámbar Smith hair flip’ that has all the boys falling at her feet  _

_ Ámbar Smith is beautiful even when she looks like she wants to murder everyone in the room _

_ Ice queen finds herself a new boytoy, frankly we like him better than the old one! _

He should listen. For once in his life, he should listen to the blatant warnings surrounding this girl. The warnings that trail behind her every step and are more and more pronounced with every action. He needs to listen, because each fiber in his body is telling him to do so. Because maybe if he had done so with Luna, he wouldn’t find himself in this state.

So why, when he looked into her eyes, did all those very important, very critical, very major pieces of information that could potentially save him from stupidly falling for someone he has no chance with,  _ again _ , become not so important?

There was something there, beneath the surface, behind those walls she was so very famous for building up high, and he wanted more than anything to find out what it was. 

He wanted to be the one to draw out the person he saw for those few minutes on the staircase. The person whose hands shook and voice cracked and for a couple of minutes was more raw than anyone would ever believe her to be.

Except it seems, yet again, that the universe doesn’t seem very keen on helping Simón fulfill his wants since that very second a vibration buzzing from Ámbar’s phone catches both of their attention.

Ámbar swallows, a little flustered before grabbing the ringing device. 

Simón manages to catch a glimpse of the name,  _ Sharon _ , flashing on her screen before Ámbar huffs out a sigh and slams the phone, screen down, on the table. Startled at her sudden aggression, Simón looks back up to her in disquiet.

“It’s just a magazine spokesperson, asking for a quote,” Ámbar replies his silent concern with a fake nonchalant shrug.

Simón can see right through her and repeats, skepticism evident, “A spokesperson?” 

“No one I’m very inclined to answer right now,” her words kinder this time, well not kinder, just less like daggers, and quite frankly that’s enough for Simón right now.

“Right.” 

The waitress rescues them from the awkward silence that was bound to fall any second now and Simón quickly pays for the bill, refusing when Ámbar reaches for her purse. He catches Ámbar glancing at the others, still frolecking in the park somewhere, and watches as she gracefully stands before jutting her head to the opposite direction.

“Want to go for a walk, I don't think they'll be done for a while.”

“Uh yeah, yeah a walk is good.” 

Except Ámbar has already started on the trail, leaving Simón to jog a little to catch up. Simón doesn’t mind. The wind sends her hair in his direction, the smell of her shampoo wafting towards him. _ God, even her hair smelled expensive.  _ Like tahitian vanilla, the citrus of a margarita, coconuts and that expensive jewelry store Pedro dragged him to that one time before valentine’s day. He doesn’t know if a perfect lazy beach day on a sunday has a smell, but if it did, that’s what Ámbar smelt like.

“I was lying before,” Ámbar starts just as Simón has made it right alongside her, “it wasn’t a spokesperson.”

It takes Simón a second to recognize what she’s talking about but once he does he lets out a chuckle, not unkindly, never unkindly, and follows up with, “Yeah, I figured.”

Ámbar looks to him, making brief eye contact before she explains, “It was my godmother. She’s been calling a lot recently.”

Simón doesn’t ask why she’s confessing this all now when just minutes ago she had no problem covering it with a lie. He wants to. But he doesn’t.

“And you don’t like it when she calls?”

A crease, strangely adorable, forms between his eyebrows.  “I used to. Even though they never ended well, I would still hope she would call every day.”

His chest tightens at the thought. 

She stops momentarily, apparently realizing what it is that she’s just admitted, “Sorry, I know you couldn’t care less —”

“No,” he interjects, “I do care. I care a lot.” 

A  _ lot.  _ More than he ever has before and he still can’t figure out why. It was like every time she unveiled a part of her life, no matter how small and minute, it had him aching even harder for more. 

She rolls her eyes, not believing him, “still.”

Simón’s hesitant but eventually places a hand on her shoulder, he doesn't want to pressure her if she really doesn’t feel like sharing but he also wants her to know that she’s not a burden, “You can tell me. I’m a really good listener.”

Ámbar smiles at that. The instant it takes her to ponder whether she’s ready to unravel all her problems to him lasts an eternity and Simón is certain that she’s going to brush him off. As always though, Ámbar surprises him.

She explains how Matteo’s agent got in contact with her earlier this morning, begging her to announce online that the two had decided they were over a long time ago and that Matteo kissing Luna wasn’t actually him cheating. They started by sucking up to her, acknowledging how much Ámbar has done to start up his career and trying to get her pity by describing how many fans he’d lose over a cheating scandal, and when that didn’t work, pressured her into feeling guilty for ‘kissing’ Simón that same night.

“That’s insane!” Simón reacts without much thought as Ámbar finishes her clarification.

She lets out a breathy laugh, her hands tightening slightly on the strap of her purse, “I know, you’d think an expert in publicity would recognize manipulative angles when she saw them.”

She doesn’t say it aloud; she doesn’t need to. He can see how she’s internalizing the pain she feels at his actions. It goes deeper than an ego game where Matteo fights to keep a facade of niceness up, it’s the fact that he can so easily reject their relationship. 

It’s important to her to keep up some semblance of a wall between herself and the world. But it’s important to him that she knows she has a right to be upset.

“No, I just mean the whole thing. The fact that they really expect you to lie to your fans and praise him for being a good boyfriend when he proved that he’s anything but.”

“Yeah, I guess, honestly it’d be nice though,” Simón’s eyes flutter to Ámbar’s hands, the ones that are twirling the ends of her blunt hair, busying themselves as she persists, “to just drop everything. With the amount of my time Matteo has already wasted it feels like he’d just be winning if I spent anymore thinking about him.”

“So, cleaning up his image wouldn’t be him winning?”

Ámbar sighs softly, “I don’t know.” 

She sounds so defeated, Simón has to tuck his hands in the pocket of his shorts to prevent himself from reaching out and taking hers into his.

“I just,” she states oblivious to Simón’s suffering, “I’ll just have to find a way to get back at him for cheating but make it seem like we’re on good terms all in one.”

Simón smiles softly at his shoes once hearing that determined edge back in her voice.  _ There she is. _

“Well if there’s anything that you ever need — ”

“There is.”

Simón’s offer hadn’t been an empty one. He truly meant that he would help her with whatever it was she needed him for. He just — didn’t expect her to come up with one so fast.

“There is?”

Nodding, a little bit frantically, Ámbar chews on her lip, lost in her own thoughts before ultimately deciding that she did indeed need him for her plan. 

Taking a deep breath before turning to face him full on, she asks, “Will you be my boyfriend?”

_ Yeah, not exactly what he was thinking when he offered to help. _

“Uh, pardon?”

“Will you be my fake boyfriend?” And then, as if it’s her lack of politeness that’s causing his reluctance, she adds, “Please.”

It’s not fair. It really isn’t, because she’s asking him as if he has any choice in the matter. When in reality, with the way she’s looking at him now, her lashes fluttering prettily and her eyes finally bright again at the prospect of getting back against her ex, he never stood a chance. It’s really not fair,

“Sure.”

“Great, thank you!” Ámbar states promptly, as if he’s going to take it back if she waits even a second to let him think things over, “I need to go figure out a couple of things, I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay,” he replied a little numbly, he thinks he’s in shock.

“Thank you!” She repeats again excitedly as she starts walking back towards the others, calling Jazmín so the girls know she’s heading home now to conspire.

_ What the actual hell just happened? _

Simón spends the rest of the week waiting.

Waiting for his brain to figure out how he got himself in this situation. Waiting for someone to pop out and shove a camera in his face, getting his reaction to being told this is all some elaborate prank. And then, once he convinces himself that Ámbar Smith really did just ask him to be her fake boyfriend, waiting for her to call him with more information. 

She doesn’t call him right away, he has to wait for longer than he initially thought. But it’s okay, he’s good at waiting. He’s had a lot of practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Some solid Ámbar and Simón interactions! And they have officially started fake dating, even if Simón doesn't quite know yet what that entails. I hope everyone's staying safe and in quarantine, I'll hopefully be keeping up with frequent updates to keep you all entertained. Though my next post is most likely going to be a oneshot and not another chapter.
> 
> As always, I have a tumblr (theuniversezecho) where you can reach me with your ideas, prompts or suggestions! Thank you for reading!


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